


hold me within the darkness

by siriuslydraco



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2018-12-04 07:38:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11550570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siriuslydraco/pseuds/siriuslydraco
Summary: Sansa can only find solace while she sleeps beside Jon





	hold me within the darkness

**Author's Note:**

> this idea just came to me and I wrote it rather quickly so apologies if it's not so good

There is a heavy breeze in Kings Landing that makes the air clammy with heat, and it filters in through the window of the Kings chambers and falls upon the sweating bodies that lay beneath the covers. Sweat trickles down Sansa's neck and she huffs gruffly as she pulls her hair away from the sticky moisture that coats her skin, a hand swiping the perspiration away. 

It's always warm in the capitol, but this past month has been victim to a torturous heatwave that has swept the land and left people beaten from the sun. Sansa wonders whether she'll ever get used to the heat that settles deadly upon the city, and she finds she misses the chill of the North even now as she lays beside the King. Jon had welcomed the heat more than she, and she always thought it had something to do with the ancient blood of the dragon coursing through him. 

Or perhaps the clammy blanket of ferocious heat that covers the city is a welcome change from the daunting task of guarding a wall of ice or fighting those with winter in their veins. 

The heat is always worse at night, and it's another factor why Sansa can never sleep properly these days. The stifling, non breathable air chokes her as it comes in the open window and rustles the shift curtains, and it clouds her mind almost as worse as her own thoughts do. Just outside she can see the tall buildings of the city and the small houses along the streets of Flea Bottom become darker as the last of light filters from the inky black sky that hangs above Westeros. There is only a few veins of purple and pink littered throughout the night, and Sansa takes comfort in knowing that the gods must still be holding onto the edges of the day. 

It's not completely night yet, and that thought makes her heart relax inside her chest. There are too many ghosts that lay behind her eyes whenever she closes them to the darkness and to sleep, and she does not wish to see them tonight. 

Jon, her husband and the King lays beside her with his face as smooth as stone; heavy breaths leaving him. He can sleep so much more easily now that war is over and that the memories of death have left him. He had buried the past back in Winterfell; left the dead in their crypts but Sansa has carried them with her every day.

Being back here, in Kings Landing especially, has left an imprint on her that she thought was forgotten when Petry Baelish had stolen her away to the Vale. Sansa had thought the power of this place had all but been forgotten until she had come back here when Jon had won the war and been crowned King. 

She could not bare to walk among the battlements without remembering the time she had been forced to look upon the decapitated head of her Lord father. The throne room haunted the edges of her mind and brought back memories of her being beaten with a torturous vengeance, and seeing Jon sit upon the throne Joffrey once owned made her feel that he still somehow lingered in spirit around it. 

The memory of Joffrey's cruel smile is resurrected within her and the sky begins to darken outside. There is a fear that grips her then and she finds she can not help but slide closer to where Jon lies. 

He is warm and despite the fact she is sweating beads from every crevice of her body, she willingly accepts his heat. It's comforting to know the heart that loves her beats beneath his chest and warms his body. 

Her leg is bare beneath her shift, an ivory piece of fabric from the Dornish isles that cannot leave room for imagination. But it is too hot to care for courtesies such as lady like modesty as she drapes the naked limb across Jon's. 

They sleep like this often, most times it is Sansa who initiates the entanglement when Jon is all but unconscious. But there is a genuine comfort that lays itself in the small space between their bodies that she can only find with him. She is close to him and he is close to her, and all fears and worries of the night seem to get smaller in her mind. 

The night is dark but Sansa's eyes are the morning sky; uninterrupted by clouds or storms but crystalline and pure and they rest upon the face of her sleeping husband as she presses her leg even tighter around his. He grumbles deeply as he shifts, but a warm and large hand places itself on her hip and there is a shaking relief that stifles her at the feel of his touch. One touch; so gentle and strong can banish the ghosts of evil from this place. The world outside does not seem so ominous and there is a comfort that grows with the light of the moon. Had it been so bright before? Or had Sansa's fears allowed it to seem darker? 

Jon may be a Targaryen but he is nothing like those princes of old she had read about when she was a girl. He is all soft angles and brooding darkness and he breathes the grayness of winter and storms. He is not violet eyed and white haired, but somehow he is more beautiful this way; more like home. He is the most handsome man she's ever laid eyes on; not even perfect Prince Joffrey with the emerald eyes and golden hair can contest to her Dragon King and not even the memory of the old Sansa could regret that. 

She spends most her nights tracing patterns on his body with nimble fingers and she does just that as she reaches towards his face; his features like the plains of smooth land that need to be explored. They've been King and Queen of Westeros for almost a year now and she still can not gather the thought correctly in her head; she can not get used to the fact that the brother she once teased and taunted over his birthright is now the King she's always dreamed of. Or the fact that it is Jon who is her husband, the man who shares her bed every night. 

His soft breath fans against her fingers as they trace the archers bow above his lip and her blue eyes flicker to his shut ones. It is times like these; when she is unabashedly fawning over his beauty that she wonders how she never saw Jon as a brave and bountiful prince that rescues fair maidens. She was a damaged and broken damsel, and it was Jon, only Jon who could piece her back together. Her Lady mother, so beautiful and stern, comes to her mind as she thinks back on how she and Jon used to be when they were children.

It was perhaps Lady Catelyn's coldness towards Lord Eddard's bastard that brought upon the uncharacteristic opinions of Jon's lowly birthright and place in the family. Perhaps it was always the thought of pleasing and emulating her mother that made Sansa shun Jon as children and was the main factor why she denied his presence so greatly. She had been horrible to him, she had even been cruel to him and yet here he lies beside her; content and peaceful with his limbs wrapped around hers. 

She doesn't deserve him. She doesn't deserve his forgiveness. It's what she tells herself when the moon hangs high and the darkness cloaks the realm, and it is perhaps the most terrifying of all nightmares that crawl within her head. Sansa loves him with her whole heart and everything else the gods have given her; her soul, her mind, her body. But inside she knows it does not outweigh the guilt that has stemmed from childhood. 

Her lips are soft against his as she kisses him lightly in sleep, and she presses them hard on his and hopes that one day she can forgive herself for the way she treated him. She pulls away when he softly grumbles and she rests back against the pillows as those black and grey eyes, those eyes of winter, open slowly to peer at her. Sansa can not help the soft sigh that escapes her mouth as Jon pulls her closer; his first instinct the moment he wakes. 

"You haven't been sleeping" it's not a question, and it didn't sound like one to Sansa, for Jon knows all too well of her broken sleeping patterns, the ones that make her blue eyes shadow with purple. Her sleeplessness is evident now in her face; porcelain skin a shade paler than normal and those Tully eyes glazed over with a haziness that shows him exactly how tired she must be. 

He can not help himself now, to bring a finger to her face to draw lines underneath those eyes, his fingertip tracing the puffy bags beneath her lashes. She sighs; a sweet and beautiful sound as Jon brings that finger towards her lips; the curve of them a landscape for him to wander. Despite the fact her skin has turned to a shade of white that is almost alarming her lips remain to be the rose petals they always are. So perfect and red, and so kissable. 

"It is too warm to sleep" Sansa tells him and he is broken from the trance he was in as her words buzz beneath his finger as they leave her mouth. He leans back slightly; having closed whatever little space there is between them as he had stared at her beauty. If she had allowed it there would be no talking between them now, only the sound of lips on lips and lips on skin. But he can tell there is a story in her eyes she wishes to tell him. And he can not allow his desire for her to overshadow that.

"That's not the reason" he shakes his head of black curls, the color of them contesting any claim he has to the Targaryen name and Sansa distracts herself by playing with one that reaches his jawline. She avoids his eyes in a way that is not well hidden at all and all her fears alight themselves in the blue "Sansa tell me. Is it the dreams again?" 

She is silent then; a sort of silence that makes Jon think she will never reply to his question but her lips quiver as they try to say the words. They are married now, and they have shared intimacies and stories that they will keep guarded for one another but no matter how many things Sansa has told him about her time with Cersei or with Littlefinger, she has never delved into the horrid topic of her abuse at the hands of Joffrey or Ramsay. Those are tales she has built walls around, and not even her King can break them down. 

"I had no dreams, Jon" she tries to reassure him, but a sick feeling claws its way under her skin. She sees the cruel and beautiful face of Joffrey standing over her every time she closes her eyes, or the twisted and cynical smile of the Bolton bastard whenever night falls and shadows disappear to black. They are not dreams, for dreams are hopeful and untouched by cruelty. Those images that stalk her mind are memories of the worst form, for they have happened and are not a figment of Sansa's imagination but the terrible reality of her past. 

"They can not touch you here, Sansa" Jon's voice is rough but soft, and so are his fingers as they brush over her skin and through her sweaty red curls that fan over the scarlet pillows "they're only memories, and they are dead. You're here because you're stronger than they ever were" 

"Sometimes I don't feel so strong. I feel like they've won" the Queen of Westeros can be vulnerable with her husband, only Jon gets to see that side of her nowadays. It is the Sansa he loves. He holds her close to him now, her cheek against his chest and his lips upon the crown of crimson that is her hair. Her hands are gentle against his back as they trace words and patterns he can not decipher, and Jon wishes they could stay like this forever; limbs entangled and hearts even more intertwined.

"They haven't. You are flesh and blood, and they are bone. They haven't won Sansa, and they never will" 

"You were right. It wasn't the heat that had me restless, it's this place and all it's memories. I hate it here Jon, and I'll never love it like you want me to" her blue eyes are crystal and bright as she looks up at him and it takes everything he has not to capture her mouth with his and kiss all the badness away. Instead it's a large hand that clasps itself around her face and his eyes are locked with hers as she stares up at him. There is such a melancholy sadness within her that always finds its way into Jon's heart. He loves and cherishes every happy memory he has of her; but sometimes when he's with her it's hard not to imagine the horror she went through. 

"They are only memories" his voice is always so soft when he reassures her and if she were not his wife she would find it hard to believe that he was capable of such gentle speech. But Sansa had heard stories of how loving and gentle her Aunt Lyanna had been, and her trait that she had clearly passed along to her son is evident within his grey eyes "I will never let any harm come to you, Sansa. You are my wife and I will protect you" 

 _No one can protect me. No one can protect anyone._ Such cynical words she had spoken to him so many years ago; words of a girl with little hope of survival. But how wrong she had been, how very wrong she was to assume there was no real protection left. Jon had protected her too many times for her to recount. He protects her even now with his arms wrapped around her small body and his heart beating so close to hers, and as each minute ticks by the darkness does not seem so ominous any longer, and there are no grimacing faces awaiting her within the darkness. 

"Will you hold me until I sleep?" the question is steeped in a desperate sort of naivety that is so unlike Sansa, and Jon can't help but want to soothe her and grant her wish. His lips brush against the small rounded tip of her nose in answer, and a heavy and content sigh leaves her mouth as she nuzzles against his chest and closes her eyes. 

The sky above the city still cloaks King's Landing in darkness and there is still a haunting presence that stalks the streets outside. But Sansa shuts it out and chooses to focus on Jon's heartbeat instead that is beating beneath the shell of her ear. It is dark and she cannot see the hidden shadows that lurk in the corners of the room and in the darkest ones of her own mind, but Jon's soothing kisses to her forehead banish them to the seven hells and her fear along with them. 

Perhaps fear will still grip itself to her nightmares if she should have any within the confines of the King's arms, but for now she is content and at peace as she lays beside him; both of them entangled in each others limbs. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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